Greetings Authors! As mentioned in our previous post, weâ€™re in the midst of a wide scale migration to AWS. Although DLS took a little longer than expected, there were no major interruptions and the...

We have quite a few things for you guys this week, but before we get started I wanted to introduce you to one of our new moderators, Technostar98!

Many of you may have noticed his name popping up either approving or denying your projects and files. He just started this week, and I’m sure you guys will be seeing a lot of him around the communities.

With this new addition to our team, moderation will now have 24 hour coverage for all addons and mods, aside from Bukkit which requires special training. Store order audit times remain unchanged. This new moderation schedule starts May 14th, 2017!

Just as a refresher for Store Orders and Bukkit plugins: moderation times are Mon-Sun, 8am - 11:59pm Pacific. Anytime there is going to be exceptionally long moderation/audit times, we do our best to notify everyone via our Twitter @CurseForge.

With introductions and refreshers out of the way, let’s get onto this week’s changelog!

Rewrote localization system to handle multiple namespaces. This means that when you do not specify a namespace it will output them all (Like previously behavior)

Export Page updated to allow users to export subtables

Escape non-ASCII characters now respected in file replacements

Set value to true if equals to key now respected in file replacements

Codebase unified with exporter codebase to prevent the two from continuing to diverge when we fix localization issues/add features.

From last Comms, now released

Server Pack Integration/Support on CurseForge (Minecraft)

As a final note, our developers will be out of town starting next Monday and won’t be back in until the following week. We still have availability for emergency bug fixes, but will be short on feature updates until they return.

That’s the roundup for this week, as always if you have any ideas or suggestions, drop them down below.

First up - sorry for being late! Between illness, a summit that we shipped our devs off to, and my own workload we missed our last Friday deadline for this post.

Our devs were out for the majority the week after our last post at an internal summit to discuss changes and features revolving around our core platform. There is a lot of good that came from those discussions, and plans are in place that should allow us a faster turn around on features and fixes due to less development overhead dedicated to maintenance, and more dedicated to productive development.

Obviously, we can’t divulge too much about that process, but as any of those plans come to fruition, we will be sure to put that information right here in these posts.

Okay, so down to business. We may be late but we are still committed to making sure we keep you guys up-to-date on the week to week over here, so let’s get to it.

We've removed the download button on modpacks due to user confusion (Minecraft)*

A couple of those security related changes are vague due to their sensitive nature, but we want you to know that we work to secure aspects of our platform (preferably) long before an issue arises. That’s the case here.

From last Comms, now released

File uploads to WoWAce blocked correctly (WoW)

If your file does not need Localizations the original file will be served to the users (WoW)

Action Logs for the Packager! Now with more info! (If it fails, we’ll try to provide info on why) (WoW)

File uploads to Abandoned or Inactive projects will now re-activate those projects (All)

Changing slugs temporarily preserves old slug as a redirect to new slug (All)

Future Roadmap (Current & Ongoing Development)

Server Pack Integration (Minecraft)

Wait, why was the download button removed on Modpacks?

There has been a recent uprise in questions (i.e. tons of support tickets) regarding how to use modpacks from users who have stumbled onto CurseForge, downloaded the modpack manifest, and have no knowledge of how to import and launch it. This of course has led to questions from authors due to download counts appearing “high” for modpacks while the mods in them maintain much lower download counts than expected. Removing the download button from forward facing locations is an attempt to help reconcile this issue.

As an example, 25% of Darkosto’s new Invasion pack downloads during its first month were generated from users incorrectly downloading the pack from the site and not knowing how to use it. The download button can still be accessed on the file information page, but that is now the only location to download modpacks on the site if needed.

Additional files (server packs, etc) will continue to have their normal download buttons as well as being better surfaced in a soon to be released update. The download button will refer to our Knowledge Base articles for downloading and importing modpacks (see those here).

Alright, that’s the fix and feature round-up since the last communications, but before we go we have a few more things we would like to discuss about the coming weeks.

Many of you will be happy to hear that we have officially moved from the discussion stage to the planning/action stage regarding community features for CurseForge!

While we don’t want to risk over promising and under delivering, we have taken a very serious look at a few key features we feel would be integral in community interaction and community building. As soon as we have the approval on specifics, we will be sure to post right here as they are added to the roadmap. These are features that we feel are essential to our current communities, but would also enrich other future communities as well.

Lastly, please know that if any issues you are concerned about have yet to be addressed, you can rest assured that we are willing to listen.

As many of you may have noticed recently, many things have been changing in the last 6 months for Curse. We know there are plenty of questions, concerns, and issues that have been brought to our attention.

The team has been wanting to develop a more clear communication pipeline between our development team and the communities for quite some time. Due to lack of resources and staff, this hasn’t been something we have had any way of effectively carrying out. Not to mention, many things we were working on we just could not discuss for logistical and business reasons.

Which brings me straight to the point of this article...

Starting today, and continuing semi-monthly (maybe more!), we’ll be putting together a post consolidating all of the changes, fixes, features, etc that we’ve completed or are working on. Some weeks will have a lot of things, some weeks won’t. Either way, we’re going to do what we can to communicate with you the things we feel you would want to know.

This won’t always just be a changelog, but will also include information about events we’re attending, places we’re going to be, cool things we want to share with you guys and in general a more open and honest window into the week to week here at CurseForge.

This first round up is very WoW heavy - but we’re doing our best to balance out the work so future updates will be a bit more diverse! So without further ado, here’s a list of the most recent fixes!

Fixed and released:

Found a missing digit for @packager-date-integer (WoW)

Tags no longer spit out exclusively Alphas from Mercurial repo (WoW)

Localization will no longer duplicate itself when deleting (WoW)

An “Unhandled Exception” in the WoW Packager has been handled, preventing files from incorrectly being flagged as complete prematurely (WoW)

WoW Packager now correctly outputs UTF-8 encoding in changelogs (WoW)

SVN Packager no longer repackages the latest tag for every commit. (WoW)

Eventually, we hope the fix list is relatively short. Not because we will ever stop fixing bugs, but because we hope we don’t create them faster than we fix them! But these posts aren’t just about what we’ve done, it’s also about what we’re doing. In addition to these fixes, we also have updates that will be going live in next week's release:

Things in QA (Fixes coming soon!)

File uploads to WoWAce blocked correctly (WoW)

If your file does not need Localizations the original file will be served to the users (WoW)

Action Logs for the Packager! Now with more info! (If it fails, we’ll try to provide info on why) (WoW)

You can now change your project name and slug independently (HOORAY!!) (All)

File uploads to Abandoned or Inactive projects will now re-activate those projects (All)

Changing slugs temporarily preserves old slug as a redirect to new slug (All)

Lastly, I want to talk a little about the future of CurseForge. I know with all of the changes there are quite a few concerns about Author Rewards, CurseForge as a business, the state of individual communities, and much much more.

First and foremost, the team here at CurseForge is 100% committed to CurseForge. In fact, we’ve organized ourselves as a proper division within the company, and as a team we have chosen to double down on our core ideals, motivations, and passion for what these sites are. In the last several weeks, as we’ve met and planned, I’ve seen renewed passion and excitement from the entire team.

We’re not going anywhere!

As for other concerns, there will be further announcements and info regarding most if not all of the major points in the coming weeks. We will be absolutely sure to let you know right here, from this point forward, any time there is important news regarding CurseForge.

Wow! This is a long one, but I wanted to make sure I was clear and thorough. Now, what I need from you guys is feedback. Give us whatever you’ve got down below. The only thing I ask is that you keep it constructive. Many of you who have come across me in forums and comment threads know that I’m happy to take constructive criticism, even if it’s harsh - but rude, non constructive, or disrespectful comments are still not appropriate and may be removed.

Keep it clear for real issues, comments, and discussion so that we can easily pick those up, track them, and get them into our tracker.

That vast majority of those who I’ve spoken to, even the most outspoken of the communities, are driven by passion. That’s something that no matter how harsh it comes across, we will take with open arms.

Today we’re happy to announce the ability to merge your Twitch account with Curse! As many of you know, and some of you don’t know, Curse was acquired by Twitch in late August of 2016.

Since then we have been working diligently behind the scenes to integrate Twitch services and offerings into our ecosystem, as well as ours into theirs. This is the next step in that process.

Unifying the login process is the first step in allowing us to offload much of the development load back to home base and move our resources more to just working on the individual experiences of each community.

In addition to this, it means that there is now a much narrower entry point helping to prevent spambot creation.

Okay, fluff is out of the way. Let’s get down to business!

What’s happening to my CurseForge account?

Nothing! This only changes how you authenticate with our services. We’re just adding the ability for you to login with your Twitch credentials! That’s it.

A few things to note:

Your CurseForge display name will stay the same if you choose

You will not lose any of your forum posts, site activity, or account information

Merging accounts is completely optional for now

This brings in the much requested ability to enable 2FA. You can merge your accounts and enable 2FA on your Twitch profile page.

Once you’ve merged your accounts, you will from that point forward log into CurseForge with your Twitch credentials.

Although merging is currently optional, this will change in the future as we move to simplify and secure the authentication process.

Cool. Now HOW do I merge my account?

That’s the easy part! The next time you go to login, you will have the option to either login with your Curse credentials, or your Twitch account. You can easily create a Twitch account if you do not have one currently. After creating/logging in with Twitch and authorizing Curse access to your Twitch account, you will be asked to enter your Curse credentials.

Poof! Connected. From this point forward, you should login in to CurseForge with your Twitch account. It’s that simple.

During this process, you may be given the option to update your Display Name. Please note that this does not affect your username, which will become your Twitch username, but only affects the name people see which works the same as it always has.

Ew! Twitch?! What is that, I don’t like it, I don’t watch live streams, etc etc etc!

No worries! It’s optional for the time being. Furthermore, once you create your Twitch account, you aren’t required to go there unless you want to. (Editor’s Note: As a streamer, I’m biased. I personally love the place).

This move’s primary goal is to consolidate our resources into a central location. We have hundreds of thousands of users coming in and out of CurseForge, and not utilizing the resources available to us would be silly.

As with our other Legacy sites, we've migrated Rift CurseForge over to the new and improved layout/backend. You should see better performance and usability in the daily activities, and in my opinion, a much more user friendly project management area.

The process went fairly smooth (we've had plenty of practice over the last few weeks), but as always there could be a few hiccups here and there. Be sure to check out the general knowledge base articles pertaining to project creation and management here: https://www.curseforge.com/knowledge-base and let us know if you have any questions or if you would like to see any specific articles added for Rift.

If you have any immediate issues or problems, please reach out to us by emailing cfmoderation[at]curse.com (goes to the whole CurseForge Community Team), or reach out to me directly on Twitter @MrFlamegoat or @CurseForge. We'll do what we can to get any issues resolved quickly!

Hope you enjoy, and feel free to drop a comment below - we'll be watching!

The holidays are coming up quick and with that we have our family gatherings to attend to (or you know, sitting on the couch eating ham and watching TV)! Since we prefer to spend out holidays with our family instead of looking over files all day we will have limited availability to approval files/projects or answer questions during this time. Below you can find our full schedule, while most of these days are marked unavailable one of us might check in randomly during the day to clear the queue out. On Christmas Eve I will make sure the queue is clear before I head to bed to prevent any 24-hour delays. If you have an emergency or concern feel free to reach out to me on twitter (@ZeldoKavira) and if I see it I will be glad to help :)

Separate from our Holiday hours we recently hired a new moderator to help with our work load. We have all been working 7 days a week for quite a few months to keep up with you guys and your awesome mods/addons but we are looking forward to time off again! That said we are still a little understaffed and so there will be two 8 hour periods in which the queue will not be covered every week. These will be the same every week and easily predictable in case anything comes up! We went through our stats and these two shifts are the least impactful for you guys, but we understand this can be frustrating apologize for the inconvenience. This will kick in starting next week.

The CurseForge dev team is preparing some of the bigger, final touches on what will become the new WoW CurseForge and WowAce sites, and they're hoping to have everything wrapped up by the end of the month. When these new sites go live, there will be some noticeable improvements for developers of WoW projects.

The old, unreliable, and unpredictable Packager is being retired -- its replacement will be many times faster, much more resilient, and able to package multiple projects simultaneously. Additionally, the new Packager will be capable of operating directly from repositories on GitHub and Bitbucket via webhooks.

The Localization System is also being heavily upgraded, including a new UI to better serve translators -- it will be available for all projects. There's also no longer going to be a requirement to use a Version Control System to take advantage of this extremely useful feature. The new behavior is to have the localizations injected into any uploaded or packaged file for projects which have the feature enabled.

We’re all very excited to be able to announce this, and look forward to many more improvements in the future. Thanks for all the support.

Cheers, Torhal and the entire CurseForge team

EDIT: When the transition occurs, repositories will be offline for roughly 24 hours. Normal file uploads will still be accessible.

We are co-hosting the annual WoW UI Community Dinner again! Please come and join us and our friends over at WoWInterface for a night of good fun, good food, and good friends.

The place is currently to be determined, but it will be on November 3rd (Thursday) at 9PM PST. Space is limited so please RSVP as soon as possible! To RSVP all you have to do is leave a comment on the forums here or if you do not have an account over there you can PM me here.

Look forward to seeing you all and meeting new people at this years Blizzcon!

Legion is right around the corner, and as such we've been taking a hard look at how we service the WoW community. The security of your information is very important to us, so we're taking a proactive step to help protect the information you've trusted us with.

Effective today, the current forums for CurseForge and WowAce have been switched to read-only mode, and new forums are now available at https://www.curseforge.com/forums to continue discussions. Unfortunately, we're not able to import the old posts just yet, but we'll be tackling this as soon as possible.

We hope this is not too disruptive, and we're sorry we couldn't give more of a heads up.

With WoW addons now available in the Curse app, the third stage of the migration is starting and we’re ready for some of you to choose to migrate over early to test it out and provide feedback.

As a thank you for trying it out early, for a promotional period (now through September 25th, 2016), we are offering Curse app Premium addon features (excluding addon sync) to app users at no cost**. To take advantage of this promotion, upgrade your client to the Curse app as soon as possible -- migrating toward the end of the promotional period will not extend its duration: the promotion will end at the same time for all users. In the next few days, we’ll have a notification that will pop up upon logging into the Curse Client v5 that contains a download link, and you can visit the notifications section of the client if you miss the pop-up. If you’d like to check out the update now, visit this page to download the app directly.

**A quick note about Curse Premium: your subscriptions to Curse Premium fund our authors, and downloads through the app contribute to their success. All of the revenue from Premium is used to support the platform, and a portion of it goes directly to authors. So far, we've paid out over $1,500,000 to authors -- this was only possible with your support and downloads.

Please note that Guild Sync (our app feature that will allow you to easily create a server for your guild that syncs role permissions) is not available in the Curse app just yet, but it will be added soon! We’re working hard to bring this feature to you and it needs a bit more polish before we can roll it out. Addon setting sync will also be added to the app in an upcoming release and will be available to Premium subscribers.

We’ll be back with another update in the future when we’re ready to enter the fourth stage of the migration where all remaining Curse Client v5 users can migrate to the Curse app so they can continue having a fully supported addon manager. We’ll continue to be here to assist you and make sure migration goes smoothly for you and your addons. If you need help or have any questions or concerns, please visit our Knowledge Base or reach out to us on our Twitter account.

TL;DR: With WoW addons now available in the Curse app, we’re ready for some of you to choose to migrate over early to test it out and provide feedback -- as a thank you, most premium addon features are available to app users at no cost for a promotional period.

TL;DR: Curse Client v5 is being phased out, and all of its functionality is being added to the Curse app. This will occur for WoW mod users in the near future, and for other Curse modding communities later. We’ll have a way for WoW mod users who want to check it out earlier to opt-in and provide feedback before we complete everyone’s migration to the app.

The Curse app is leveling up with World of Warcraft addons! We’re bringing streamlined addon management to you as an all-in-one solution for WoW players.

Evolution of WoW mod management

Curse has been given full buffs for WoW, including support for both PC and Mac, rich chat embeds with loot linking and complete tooltips, character profiles to show off your current progress, and easy guild syncing to create a server to play in. We have everything you need to prepare for Legion and hit it hard on launch day!

Here at Curse, we put our users first. We want to deliver the most streamlined and best supported experience possible, and the prime way to do this is by offering addons within the Curse app. We recognize that the current addon client hasn’t been receiving the rich support that the community needs -- this migration allows us to provide a first-class WoW experience that will make addon use and maintenance better for everyone, new and veteran players alike.

The features that you already know and love within the Curse Client v5 have received updates with their migration to the Curse app to improve usability and enhance player experience. Everything will work similarly to the way it does in the Curse Client v5 with added clarity and better UI. The features you've been experiencing for free currently in the v5 client will remain free with the migration to the app, and we're even adding more free features. Premium subscriptions will also continue to be available for purchase.

Item linking with tooltips

Let’s round up the major features that become available with the migration:

Full Mac support

Expanded localization support for many more languages

No more ads

Memory usage remains very low, even with full access to the feature-rich Curse app

We’re also rolling out a TON of new WoW features to the Curse app:

Easy guild server creation with loads of customization options for permissions and channels

Armory profile syncing to keep your character sheets up-to-date within the Curse app

Faction themes for Horde and Alliance

Full item linking support to show off loot, complete with tooltips

Guild polls can be used to help make decisions, like preferred raid nights

Enhanced game overlay to easily coordinate gameplay during voice calls

Armory profile syncing

The full migration process will happen in stages. We expect everything to transition smoothly and easily, but we’re ready to support you if you experience any issues. You can always reach out to us if you need in-depth guidance or discover bugs via the links below.

Stage one is rolling out WoW addons to the alpha Curse app. All alpha users will be able to check out the new World of Warcraft tab on the left navigation bar and immediately be able to access addon management.

The second stage will push WoW addons to the live Curse app. The Curse app will also become the default download for new WoW addon users during this stage.

The third stage will begin the migration of WoW Curse Client v5 users to the Curse app -- the client will provide information about the migration and point users to the Curse app. For a promotional period (30 days from the start of the migration), we are offering Curse app premium addon features (excluding addon sync) to app users during this stage as a thank you for trying it out early. (Updated 7/29/2016 to clarify details around the premium incentive that will be available).

The fourth and final stage will migrate all remaining Curse Client v5 users to the Curse app. The client will ask users to install the Curse app to continue managing their WoW addons.

Thank you for your continued support and dedication as we move into the next evolution of Curse. We appreciate each and every one of you, and we want your voice to always be heard. Make sure to leave any feedback you have inside the app via the feedback submission form in the help menu. If you need help or have any questions, please visit our Knowledge Base or reach out to us on our Twitter account.

We are excited to announce that we will be able to help our WoW authors get access to Legion's Beta!

In order to participate in this, you must be a member of a WoW project on either WowAce.com or CurseForge's WoW portal and you must have your Battle.net email address filled in. Don't worry about other users getting your Battle.net email, this information is only visible to you and the admins and will only be used for this (and possibly future) beta invites!

Please note that we are forwarding this list to Blizzard and ultimately in their discretion when and if you will receive a beta invite.

For the last two years we've been working on a new platform to power CurseForge. In March 2014 we debuted the platform to support WildStar. In May 2014 we added Kerbal Space Program and then shortly after migrated Minecraft to the new platform.

Since then, we've been frantically working to add new features to support the new experiences, as well as the features that were still missing from the legacy platform. The time has now come to show the hard won fruits of the last two years of labor to our World of Warcraft authors.

To that end we're launching beta sites for both WowAce and WoW CurseForge. While we're very happy with the platform, we need your help with trying to break things, finding things we've missed, or giving feedback on some of the changes we've made.

There are two important things to know: While these sites are more or less feature complete when compared to the existing sites the one major feature that's still to be launched is repositories. This feature is forthcoming and will be enabled in the upcoming weeks. Secondly, these sites are not truly live. Any projects created, changed, updated, or the like will not synchronize to either Curse.com or the Client.

We're expecting to leave the beta sites up for several weeks. During the testing period, please use this forum for discussions, bug reports, and general feedback. At the end of the beta test we'll be wiping out everything on the new platform and reimporting the legacy sites.

We hope you enjoy the new sites, and we can't wait to hear your feedback!

We're performing maintenance on some of the back-end services, which necessitated the disabling of the service that updates the download counters on all projects. The downloads are still being recorded, however, so once we re-start that particular service the numbers will reflect the correct amount.

Thanks,
Torhal

UPDATE: The services have been re-enabled; download counters are now reading appropriately.

Pax South 2015 was amazing. San Antonio's weather was a bit petulant at first with cold rain on arrival. That quickly cleared up and most of the convention was sunny and warm. Several CurseForge team members attended to meet with our client users, authors and community members. As a way of giving back to the community and a great excuse for good food CurseForge sponsors dinner at the conventions we attend. For Pax South our dinner was held at Texas de Brazil a Brazilian Steakhouse with all you can eat steaks, filet, and bacon. There were also some vegetables somewhere.

We had 30 seats and ended up expanding to 40 seats. And with Pax East just a few weeks away we plan to do it again.

We have had a couple issues at the past 2 dinners with people not knowing the dinner was occurring and not getting their invitation. To prevent this for Pax East we'd like to get an idea of who would like to go with us. We have not decided on the location for Pax East yet since we need to know how many guests before we can make a reservation.

If you would like to be on the list for invites please fill out this 3 question survey with some form of contact information for us to send the invite to. You can choose what to answer and what contact information you want to give us if any. Community members with valid contact information will have a higher chance of getting an invitation to future CurseForge dinners at conventions. Twitter and Curse accounts are valid contact options if you prefer not to give us your email. This is not only open to authors, community members are welcome too.

Once we have an idea how many people want to join us for food and drinks we'll make a reservation and send out invites. It will be some form of steakhouse or other traditional restaurant type. There will be vegetarian and gluten-free options available.

If you are headed to Pax South, or you will be in the San Antonio,TX area on Saturday Jan 24th, you are invited to dinner on us. In the tradition of Texas dinner will be steak. There may be vegetables hidden somewhere.*

Dinner will start at 7pm. You must be 17+ to attend. You must be 21+ with valid ID to drink alcohol. Come hang out with FTB, Curse, streamers, youtubers, authors, and anyone else that stops in.

Space is limited, RSVP to [email protected] for confirmation of seating and location.